The Mirage on the Brink of Oblivion (The Epic of Aravinda Book 3)

by Andrew M. Crusoe

  “Manu,” she said, “what’s that? Why didn’t we see it before?”

  He looked up and studied the white rings for some time.

  “Those are the inner planes,” Manu whispered. “We are truly seeing beyond the veil now, yet time runs short. Come.” He gestured to the trench below. “Our future lies within, not above.”

  He dove in headfirst, as if the trench were a dark pool.

  Asha had trouble tearing her gaze away, but eventually turned to once again peer into the trench below. Without a word, Zahn dove in after Manu, and Asha watched him for a few moments.

  She tried to swallow her fear. “Okay. Here we go again.”

  With outstretched fingertips, she dove into the soupy darkness, quickly catching up to Manu and Zahn who were gliding in formation.

  As they pushed ahead, the trench grew narrower, and after a few moments Manu abruptly halted.

  “Stop.”

  “Huh?” Zahn stopped and turned to him. “Why? What’s up?”

  “Don’t you sense it? There’s a shield barrier below us, similar to the one used at the edge of the Mirage.” Manu turned to Asha. “Let’s spread out and find a gap. We may need to partially pass through the rock to find it, but that shouldn’t impede you. Carefully make your way down until you feel resistance, and then stop. Any gap should be visible if you pay close attention. After that, we’ll use thought-nuggets to hide our communication.”

  They spread out, each gliding down into the shadows, until Asha felt the springy resistance of the barrier. She glanced around, noticing how many rock slabs had broken off and fallen down here. The bottom of the trench looked like chaos, strewn with creepy, almost person-like shapes.

  She glided downward a bit more and searched for imperfections. Last time, she’d seen a distortion in the light, so she looked for something similar.

  “Here!” Manu said, waving them over to a spot toward the middle of the trench. “Over here. It’s not even small. Quite unusual.” In a blink, Manu flew down into the gap, and Asha’s view of him suddenly became blurry, as if he’d gone underwater.

  “Hah, the barrier is distorting you,” Zahn said, flying down to where Manu had indicated.

  He zipped down, and Asha followed him.

  Down here, the light was even dimmer, and Asha looked back up, seeing the trench’s walls towering above them, distorted in long ripples, making the rocks seem to sway like the forest.

  Come, we must press onward.

  They reached the tortured pit of the trench, and as they passed into a patch of utter darkness, Asha was careful to focus on Manu’s ident so she didn’t lose them.

  Pretty dark.

  Manu took on a reassuring tone. Never fear. Just follow my ident. I see something up ahead.

  Asha felt the tension mounting. What’s up there?

  Follow my ident and see, dear Asha.

  She darted ahead, into the blind darkness of the rock, and found herself in the midst of a vast crystalline structure filled with a dim white light. The crystals crisscrossed and intersected in ways that she found immediately familiar.

  Ice? But it doesn’t make sense. Why does the ice have a faint glow?

  Manu glided over to her. There are several possibilities. Perhaps this ice patch is exposed to the sunlight somewhere far above us.

  Asha glanced over to Manu and once again tried to make out some detail beyond the white light of his hood. Still, she couldn’t see his face.

  The hooded figure zoomed ahead, waving them downward.

  We must not let the natural beauty distract us from our purpose here. I believe your little friend was correct. I feel something, a presence far below. Come, we must press onward.

  They zoomed ahead, through the expansive patch of ice. Sometimes they would see a large rock stuck within the ice sheet, a strange frozen pattern covering its surface. And soon they reached the end of the ice layer and plunged back into a dark patch, once again blind to their surroundings.

  When they emerged again, they were behind a rocky column in a much larger space. It took Asha a moment to realize that they had reached a huge chamber, glowing golden. Pointed spikes covered every surface, reaching up from the floor and down from the ceiling, and in the far distance, at least two dozen hooded guards guarded something near the center of the room.

  Zahn nudged her, pointing to something in the distance.

  Asha looked, noticing a small mound of stone where a large pearl-like object was embedded into the rock, glowing in a deep golden light. She almost yelped with joy, but stopped herself. After all that they’d been through, she didn’t want to give away their position, and she looked around for Manu, who was leaning against the back of the column.

  This is it! The Chintamani chamber.

  He locked eyes with her. I’ll distract them while you retrieve the Breath of Life. Usually, I would recommend a covert approach, but the stone is totally surrounded. We’ll have to attack from multiple angles. You may need to leave without me.

  Asha winced. We’re not leaving you, Manu. We’re all getting out of this together.

  The success of this mission is of highest importance! The Breath of Life is the last chance we have against the scourge.

  He looked over to the small mound, and Asha bit her lip.

  Manu, we’re all leaving this chamber with the stone. Or else I’ll die trying.

  Yet he didn’t respond and bolted out into the open, shooting wide energy-domes at the cluster of royal guards.

  She pulled out the small knife she’d made to fight the etheric worms and turned to Zahn, meeting his gaze. At once, she felt they shared an understanding, and they both bolted ahead toward the small mound.

  While Zahn and Manu distracted the royal guards, Asha zoomed up to the glowing pearl-like object. She reached out and pulled at it, but instantly felt weak. She looked over and was shocked to see that a tendril had attached to her arm, leading back up to a hooded guard that was covered in dozens more of the small grotesque appendages.

  “Sick!” Asha screamed, cutting at the tendrils with the knife she’d manifested. “Get off of me!”

  She flew up and sliced at the guard’s tentacles, beginning to feel weak.

  “You jerk! You sucked some of my energy away, didn’t you?”

  The guard only laughed at her as he unleashed a wave of energy balls at her. Behind him, another guard approached, and she realized she only had one choice. With a wild intensity, she dodged a plethora of tentacles and charged at the grotesque guard with her knife, plunging it deep into his white hood, where she could only assume its head was.

  The guard screamed as the light that once hid its identity faded, revealing the face of an old man, partially split in two, yet utterly bloodless.

  Asha frowned as she pulled the knife out. “One down.”

  Still, another guard was fast approaching, and she glanced around for Manu, who was dealing with his own problems. He’d trapped five royal guards already, but two were chasing him into a corner on the far end of the chamber.

  Zahn was no where to be seen.

  She turned around and looked back over to the golden mound. “Zahn?”

  To her shock, the Empress Amaraloka stood beside the Breath of Life. Her fiery red hair seemed calm for the moment, but her face was covered in a mixture of disgust and rage. Asha’s eyes followed a long tendril of energy that led up out of Amaraloka’s right hand to a sphere where Zahn was trapped.

  “Gha!” Asha groaned.

  Her eyes burned into Asha, and she spoke in slow, measured syllables. “The sheer audacity of your plan is unforgivable.” A wave of sadness washed over the face of the Empress, and Asha wondered if she might cry. “At the ceremony, I shared a thought-nugget outlining an opportunity I’ve never extended to anyone else: the chance to be my royal healer. I honored you, and this is how you repay me? By trying steal the source of our civilization’s power?” The Empress spun her hand around, whipping the sphere Zahn was inside in a wide circle unt
il she abruptly stopped, sending him smacking against the inside of the sphere. “How dare you violate my trust!”

  “Empress,” Asha said, “this isn’t about you or me. The Confederation needs the Breath of Life. Without it, we’ll lose everything. The Vakragha will own this galaxy! Please, don’t you realize that?”

  “The scourge won’t come near us, child! Not with my power!” The Empress screamed back, and Asha suddenly realized that she’d never seen the Empress actually upset before. Her raw energy sent her fiery red hair flying in all directions, revealing a terrifying rage.

  “Yes, they will!” Asha screamed back. “Maybe not tomorrow, but they will come, as they come for everyone.”

  Two guards flew down beside the Empress, and one of them pulled along a sphere where Manu was trapped. Zahn already floated in a sphere at the right hand of the Empress, completing the symmetry of the scene and filling Asha’s heart with despair.

  The Empress turned to Manu, who was floating to her left. “And you! From this day forth, you shall be the most reviled in the city. You took an oath, Manu, to serve me. Yet today you betrayed me in the deepest way. I cannot fathom why you would do this, but your punishment shall be the worst of all.” She curled her fingers into her palm and moved her hand toward her heart. As she did this, Manu’s brightness faded, and Asha watched as his face slowly came into view.

  It was a face Asha had seen before, a face she had grown to trust, even to love as one would love a family member.

  Asha’s expression twisted in bewilderment.

  “Oonak?”

  Without a light behind his hood, the man’s white robe seemed almost grey in comparison, and his strong jaw and dark eyes were unmistakable.

  “Yes, Asha.” Oonak nodded. “It is I.”

  Asha squinted her eyes and looked over to Zahn, who was speechless. “But why didn’t you tell us? I don’t understand.”

  “I am so sorry, Asha. I couldn’t reveal my true identity to anyone. I never knew who might be listening, and I didn’t want to hurt either of you again. I already left you two once, so I decided to reveal myself if and when the mission was a success. I am sorry that I miscalculated.”

  “A grand miscalculation, I would say.” The Empress shook her head in amusement as several more guards surrounded Asha. “I sensed the deception in my midst, which is why I’ve been coming up here, to monitor that which is most precious. And now you shall all be exiled from this world, forever. The Dagger of Kirin is too good for you, Asha. You shall suffer.” She gestured toward Asha. “Drain her!”

  The guards shot tiny tendrils onto Asha’s skin, like little sucking mouths that made her feel sleepy and weak. Yet there was a strength still inside of her, and she pushed it down, as deeply as she could.

  Oonak pressed his eyes shut, as if he were in great pain. “I had to try, Empress. I know you don’t trust my friends, but what they say is true. The Vakragha will come for this world, just as they came before. But now they will come without end, for there is one who possesses the Chintamani stone of healing, the Kiss of Life. Only the Breath of Life will balance the scales again, Empress. Why don’t you go and see for yourself?” Oonak pointed upward. “With your power, I’m sure you’ve seen them, in your visions, haven’t you? Consuming so many suns.”

  The Empress stared at him darkly.

  “Yes,” Oonak continued, “you have seen them, haven’t you? You see the inevitable coming, but you do not embrace the truth. Yet you must. We all must.”

  With a twist of her hands, she shrunk the sphere so that he was pressed tighter and tighter. “Such visions are delusions, Oonak! With no basis in fact.”

  “Empress!” Oonak pleaded. “You know as well as I do that it is not the strongest species that survive but the most adaptable to change. And we must do the same.” His voice shrank to a whisper. “Please, Empress. I took an oath to act for the highest good of our people, and that is all we want to do!”

  The Empress stared at him in silence for a few moments, her gaze burning into him. “Another word out of you, and I shall kill your friends myself!”

  Rage bubbled up from within Asha. She had not come this far to watch her friends fail now. Like a well deep within her being, she tapped into the strength the ambrosial soup had given her, and breathed it in.

  “NEVER!” Asha cried out, twirling in a mad spin and severing the half dozen tendrils attached to her body. She shot a huge dome of light out of her hand, surrounding the Empress in a thick sphere of energy. And, pulling her last ounce of ambrosial strength from deep within, she manifested a golden blade in her other hand with as much ambrosia as she could pour into it.

  Asha launched a tentacle of energy out to the sphere and pulled the Empress over to her, pointing a long golden blade toward her.

  “Listen up, Royal Detritus!” Asha said. “You make ONE wrong move, and I’ll drain the Empress of her vital energy.”

  “Take it easy!” One of the guards yelled. “Don’t make any irrational movements. We will comply.”

  “Don’t listen to her!” The Empress screamed. “She doesn’t—”

  Asha closed her eyes for a moment, using the last of her energy to make the sphere even thicker. She looked up to the guard holding Oonak.

  “LET HIM GO!” Asha barked.

  The guard diminished slightly and looked over to the Empress who was screaming something, although no one could hear. Apparently at a loss of what to do, the guard relaxed, and the sphere that trapped Oonak faded away.

  Oonak laughed in disbelief and flew down to the Breath of Life, easily pulling it free from the golden mound. He turned to the Empress and shook his head. “You will see, dear Empress. We will free this galaxy from terror, and we will do it with or without your help.”

  Curiously enough, a dim sphere remained embedded in the central mound, and Asha realized that Oonak had only taken the etheric body of the stone. Its physical component remained unmoved, yet dim.

  Oonak’s body was filled with a new glow, and he rapidly shot a half dozen energy balls in all directions, trapping all of the remaining guards within seconds, all the while holding the Breath of Life under his right arm.

  “Extraordinary,” she whispered.

  “Yes.” Oonak nodded. “The Breath of Life is as powerful as we had hoped.”

  Zahn’s sphere faded, and he zoomed over to Oonak and embraced him tightly. “I can’t believe it’s you!”

  At seeing this, Asha zoomed over too and embraced him, careful to keep the Empress and the trapped guards at a safe distance. “After everything that’s happened, I’m so glad that you’re okay.”

  As he embraced them, Asha felt a flood of warmth.

  “I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell either of you,” he said as he embraced them. “The Empress had spies everywhere. The risk was too great. I hope you both understand.”

  “I understand,” Asha said.

  Behind her, the Empress screamed. “You fools!”

  Asha turned around, noticing Zahn as he rubbed his temples. He must have hit his head pretty hard.

  “Oh, yeah?” Zahn said, glaring at the Empress. “And which one of us is stuck in a bubble?”

  “But it’s getting thinner, Zahn. We can hear her, which means her thought-nuggets could get out again. And you look hurt. Let me see.” Asha examined Zahn’s head. One side was dimmer than the rest of his body, and she touched the dim area, channeling light through her heart and out her hand. “Does that feel better?”

  Zahn brightened. “Thank you, Asha. That does feel better.”

  “Don’t any of you understand?” The Empress collapsed within the bubble, breaking down into tears. “If you take the Breath of Life, you won’t only destroy Mirage City. You will destroy our entire world. Please, see reason! I beg you!”

  Asha shook her head. “I understand your perspective, but you are reacting out of fear, not compassion. This stone is only a catalyst. Your people built your city with their thoughts, and borrowing the stone won’t chang
e that. Your world will not fade in its absence, and we will return the stone once we have defeated the scourge.”

  Oonak shot three more spheres out of his palm, and they wrapped around the first one, leaving the Empress encased in a four-layered energy bubble.

  At seeing this, the guards redoubled their efforts to escape the bubbles they were trapped in, but made little progress against Oonak’s ambrosial spheres.

  “That should hold her for a while. Come, my friends. We may have the third stone, but we’re still short on time.”

  “And we still need the other two stones,” Asha said.

  Oonak tilted his head curiously. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll tell you when we get to the surface. I don’t want any chance of the Empress overhearing us.”

  “Of course.” Oonak nodded, his energy feeling much clearer to her than before. She felt him stretch up to the surface and focused her mind on his ident.

  Her awareness passed through untold layers of ice and stone, and once again the chamber was silent, leaving the Empress and her guards trapped within perfect spheres of ambrosial energy, and with great rage, they struggled to break free.

  CHAPTER 35

  LIGHT-YEARS DISTANT

  Once again, Oonak found himself on the familiar edge of a lifeless trench that dropped off for many meters, bleached white by aeons of radiation. Still, it had a quiet kind of beauty.

  “You two are astonishing,” he said, turning to Zahn and Asha who had materialized just beside him. “Do you know that?”

  Asha ran up to Oonak and embraced him tightly, filling his body with warm energy. “I know I already hugged you, but I just can’t believe you’re here! Oonak, we thought you were dead.”

  She looked up to his face, her eyes studying him intently. “Zahn was right. Your hair does have a tinge of blue. It’s hard to see the blue because it’s so dark, but I see it.”

  “So, can I see the stone?” Zahn said.